Fremont will close the middle portion of Morrison Canyon Road, a narrow,<br />rural passageway that has become popular with commuters looking for a<br />quicker route to Interstate 680. The portion being eyed for closure is<br />shown above in yellow in a Fremont staff report image.

FREMONT — Fremont will close the middle portion of Morrison Canyon Road, a narrow, rural passageway that has become popular with commuters looking for a quicker route to Interstate 680.

Over the past two years, the winding road that runs from Mission Boulevard up into the hills has seen more afternoon traffic as drivers seek alternatives to gridlocked Mission Boulevard. City staff said that trend has only been “aggravated” by popular navigation apps such as Waze and Google Maps that help motorists shave minutes off drive times.

The City Council unanimously voted to instruct city staff to work up a plan to close the middle stretch of the road at its June 19 meeting after hearing from 17 speakers about the issue, about 10 of whom agreed with the closure.

The road closure may not take effect until September, however, as a full environmental review and public hearing will need to take place, and be approved by the council to make the closure permanent, according to Hans Larsen, the city’s public works director.

The portion of the road that is being eyed for closure is just short of a mile long, and no homes are accessed from that stretch of it, Larsen said. The entire road will still be open for pedestrians and bicyclists, as well as emergency personnel.

The road is simply far too narrow to be safe, and faces other safety hazards as well, Larsen told the council.

“It goes down to as small as 9 feet wide, and incredibly, it is operating for two-way traffic. That’s less than a standard lane for a single lane of traffic,” Larsen said.

“It’s even more challenging when two vehicles are coming in opposing directions,” he said, noting there are very few turnouts. “It’s quite a dance with people trying to find a place where they can safely pull over and somebody can pass. So that’s what we’re trying to address.”

The drivers who do use it for commuting connect to Vargas Road, which has a 25 miles-per-hour speed limit, but Larsen said almost 80 percent of cars using Vargas during weekday afternoons are driving more than 10 miles per hour faster than the limit.

The road also is used by hundreds of pedestrians and bicyclists, and because it is so narrow, it can be dangerous when cars and people need to get by each other, he said. In addition, mudslides have blocked the roadway during wet winters, he said.

However, some residents who live on nearby Vargas Road or on Morrison Canyon Road opposed the closure, asking the council instead to restrict it for resident use only, or to improve it. They said the council needed to consider their ability to get down the hill quickly if there were an emergency.

While city staff said it’s against the law to restrict the road for resident use only, the council decided to include a provision that would see a gate installed along Morrison Canyon Road for emergency access. Residents could have it opened remotely by calling 911 if there were an emergency.

Otherwise, those residents will need to use Vargas Road to access Mission Boulevard, which some said will add significant time onto their drives for work and errands.

Others, like Paul Perkins, who lives on the lower portion of Morrison Canyon Road, said he supports the closure because it’s “terrifying to be there in the afternoon as the commuter traffic” comes through the area.

“It is a dangerous road. Somebody’s going to get hurt, sooner or later. Somebody’s going to get killed, sooner or later. It’s just a matter of time,” he told the council.

The council agreed. Councilman Rick Jones, a former police officer who said he responded to calls for service on the road, said it’s too dangerous.

“It’s been that way for years and years and years. There’s not really an effective way to improve it,” he said. “Safety trumps everything else.”

Councilman Raj Salwan called the road “terrible,” while Councilman David Bonaccorsi said it is a “rural path that has outlived its usefulness.”

Larsen said city staff had collected a lot of opinions from residents and property owners about the road recently, including a community meeting on May 30.

“There is no perfect solution here,” Larsen said. “We appreciate everybody’s involvement, but I think our perspective is, we need to do something different with this roadway.”

Joseph Geha is a multimedia journalist covering Fremont, Newark, and Union City for the Bay Area News Group, and is based at The Argus. His prior work has been seen in multiple Bay Area news outlets, including SF Weekly, as well as on KQED and KLIV radio. He is a graduate of California State University, East Bay (Hayward), and is a Fremont native. He is a lifelong Oakland Athletics fan.

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